The Strongest Sandbender
by mooseman3
Summary: Gaara passes out and finds himself in the Avatar world, will he stay or will he try to return to his world? Might do a pairing if it's requested enough.
1. Chapter 1

**So… new story, gonna be completely honest here this was the first story I tried to do, but half way through I was like, 'no we're doing this with fairy tail.' So here we are, like two years later and I'm finally getting this down. Enough of my rambling let's get on with it.**

**I do not own Naruto or Avatar: The Last Airbender**

"Talking"

'_Thinking'_

"**Spirit Talking"**

'_**Spirit Thinking'**_

_*Sound Effect*_

**XXX**

It had only been a few months since Gaara and his siblings had returned from assisting the Hidden Leaf Village in their attempt at retrieving Sasuke, unfortunately the mission had failed and Gaara had returned to Sunagakure slightly disappointed at being unable to help his first friend Naruto bring back his teammate. However, right now Gaara was facing a brand new problem.

It had started in the middle of the night. Shukaku had been persistently banging on his mental walls, even though he did everything he could to block out the demon, Shukaku's response was to simply get louder. Usually when this happened it was because Shukaku wanted someone killed, but this time Shukaku had been screaming in what Gaara could only describe as pain. To hear the giant demon in pain was something entirely new to him and to be honest it was not something he enjoyed hearing. Because apparently if Shukaku was in pain then Gaara had to be as well.

Right now Gaara was on the floor of his bedroom clutching his head in pain, he had tried to get to the bathroom in order to run his head under some water but halfway there Shukaku had decided to raise the volume yet again causing Gaara to stumble and fall. He wanted to ignore the demon, he really did, but the longer this went on the more Gaara thought that he'd pass out from the pain. He knew that if he actually did end up passing out then Shukaku would be free to do what he liked. He had to do something; unfortunately he had no idea how to pacify Shukaku other than to kill.

Shukaku's screaming was picking up in volume, Gaara had managed to get to his feet, but he could only accomplish stumbling around before slamming into a wall and sliding down. He took a few breaths before getting to his feet; he took three steps before once again falling. This time he managed to catch himself on the door of his room. He pulled the door open and made his way through the apartment to the front door. He hoped that by getting some fresh air he'd be brought some relief from Shukaku's mental attack. Still clutching his head Gaara made his way out of the apartment and into the streets of Suna, he knew he was being watched and if he needed to he'd address them, but for now his only focus was to stop the pain.

As he made his way through the streets there was one thought that managed to make its way through his haze of pain. What was causing Shukaku so much pain? In all his years as the host of the one-tailed demon he had never heard it call out in pain the only thing that it ever yelled about was either murder or annoyance.

Gaara was stumbling through the streets trying to think of something to help ease the pain when the shinobi who had been following him made their presence known. There were eight of them, and they had arranged themselves into a circle around the redhead. The one directly in front of him, he assumed he was the leader, took a step forward and held a kunai horizontally in front of him.

"You get one warning demon, turn around and go back to your apartment."

Shukaku took the opportunity to once again cause Gaara pain, by slamming against Gaara's mental wall and screaming. At this Gaara winced and squeezed his head lightly in a weak attempt at somehow stopping the pain. The shinobi took a step back at the site in fear of being killed.

"I am sorry, but I am in need of fresh air."

The leader gulped before tightening his grip on the kunai. He remembered the words of the council to never let Gaara leave his apartment at night for the next few weeks. They wanted a stronger hold on the demon child and they felt that the best way to do that was to shorten his leash; they had allowed him to aid Konoha as a sign of good will and to show that they had more control over their jinchuuriki now. However when Gaara was off of missions, they were going to keep him as detained as possible.

"Then crack a window."

"Please."

All eight of the shinobi's eyes widened at the jinchūriki's words. Gaara didn't say please he made threats and killed anyone who defied him. The leader shook his head and once again refused to move.

"This is your last warning."

"I see, then I apologize."

He was still working on not using violence to solve his problems so it was more out of reflex then anything else, before the shinobi could react the sand beneath their feat rumbled and suddenly exploded. It wrapped around all eight of them and made its way up their bodies before stopping just below their eyes. The eyes of the Sand-nin went wide as they all struggled for air, and after what seemed like forever their eyes slowly shut. After the last shinobi's eyes closed Gaara released the technique and all eight bodies slumped the ground seemingly lifeless.

Gaara clutched his head with both hands as he fell to his knees; it felt like using his sand manipulation while Shukaku was in pain was not a good idea. He tried to get to his feet again but another bout of pain from Shukaku forced him onto all fours. His vision was beginning to get fuzzy and everything started multiplying. First he saw double then triple, until it all melted into one big blur and finally it all faded to black.

**XXX**

His head was still pounding when he woke up. He cracked his eyes open and saw sand, he was about to get up until he heard two voices, and from the sound of it they were both male. He decided to remain cautious and closed his eyes in order to evaluate the situation.

"You think he's dead?"

"Who cares, let's just see if he's got any thing valuable on him."

"If he's alive he can sell him right?"

"Even if he isn't dead, he will be soon. Now shut up and help me search him."

He heard the sound of sand shifting, as one of the men got closer, the sound stopped near him and there was a pause. Seconds later the man gave a startled cry as Gaara's sand rose in defense. Gaara chose that moment to open his eyes and clenched his hand into a fist getting another surprised yell as the first thief was wrapped in sand. He rolled onto his back and stood up, he quickly scanned his surroundings in order to prepare for whatever was about to happen. His first and most surprising discovery was that he was no longer in the streets of Sunagakure; instead he was in the open desert without a building in sight. He next discovered that instead of just two men there were more than ten, all of whom were wrapped in bandages, and in the background there was what appeared to be four ships.

The bandaged man closest to what had happened was quick to snap out of surprise and sent a wave of sand at Gaara.

'_He can manipulate sand?'_

The sand split in two before reaching Gaara and made a circle around Gaara before making its way back to the attacker. The sand knocked him off of his feet and onto his back; there was a sound of sand bursting at Gaara's left and he turned to see his captive had managed to escape. He spun his arms in a circle and threw his fist forward causing a wave of sand to make its way toward Gaara, before making contact a hole opened up in front of Gaara allowing him to be untouched by the attack. In response Gaara made a backhand motion and a tendril of sand smacked the second attacker in his right side.

'_I see so they can both manipulate sand. It would be safe to assume that the other members of this group can move sand as well. I must end this quickly.' _

He held his hand so that his palm faced the sky and closed causing sand to wrap around one of the boats, he flicked his wrist toward himself and unclenched his fist which made the boat fly into the air and landing directly onto a group of the bandaged men.

This time Gaara clapped his hands together before throwing them apart causing the sand to rise up and bury the remaining thieves. After making sure that his attackers were not getting back up Gaara began walking only to trip over his feet as he was hit by another headache. He noticed that the severity was less intense than it was originally, it seemed that whatever was bothering Shukaku had passed and now he only had to deal with what remained. Now he had a new problem to deal with, he had somehow gotten himself into the desert outside of Sunagakure without a clue of how to get back to his village.

He sighed in exasperation and activated his third eye technique to find some sort of civilization; he raised the eye high above the ground and sighed yet again when he saw that there was nothing in any direction his best bet was to walk west in order to find the border that marked the Land of Rivers and from there he'd be able to make his way toward Suna. He took note of the suns location and had his sand form beneath him like a cloud and he began his journey toward the Land of Rivers.

**XXX**

**And there's chapter 1, not my longest chapter, in fact I'm pretty sure it's one of my shortest. But that's now the point, Gaara doesn't know he's in another world yet and is on his way towards something that doesn't exist. What will he find? Who will he meet? What happens with those sandbenders? Read the next chapter to find out. As always review, ask and suggest, later.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Hello and welcome, I have to say that I am very happy at the reception that the last chapter received. First of all I apologize for the delay, but some personal stuff popped up and I needed to deal with it. Thank you to all who have sent in your thoughts, and ideas, I love them all and I have been given much to think over. Also, shout out to Cloud 4012 for giving me a hand with this chapter, but enough of me, let's get on with it.**

**I do not own Naruto or Avatar: The Last Airbender**

"Talking"

'_Thinking'_

"**Spirit Talking"**

'_**Spirit Thinking'**_

_*Sound Effect*_

**XXX**

He had been travelling through the desert on his sand cloud for the past hour and with that much time he had been thinking. The thought that entered his mind the most was how he had ended up in the middle of the desert with no signs that Sunagakure was anywhere close. His last memory before ending up in this situation was of Shukaku giving him a massive headache before he eventually passed out, after that he had no recollection of anything else. Which raised the other question of how he had gotten into the desert, had somebody moved him while he was asleep? Possible, but unlikely, not many people in the village had the courage to touch him and his sand would have stopped those that did.

A sigh escaped as he felt his frustration mounting, there were simply to many questions and not enough information for him to answer. It would be easier if he could speak with Shukaku, as uncooperative as the demon would likely be, there was still a chance that he could squeeze some type of answer out of him. Unfortunately for Gaara, Shukaku had been silent since his arrival in the desert, whether he was asleep or simply ignoring his host was still to be discovered but ultimately Gaara was left without any possible way to explain how he had gotten himself lost.

His eye twitched and he raised his hand to his temple as another headache arrived, it was much less severe than the original but it was still bothersome. He tried pushing on but quickly decided that using his abilities was likely not a wise decision at the moment, no matter how fast he wanted to return to his home. And so Gaara reluctantly decided to land. He was still feeling the after effects of Shukaku's tantrum and pushing himself harder than necessary was not the wisest decision at the moment because of the fact that he had no idea what could happen. With no other choice Gaara chose to walk the remaining distance.

It was a harsh walk, with the sun beating down on him and having to climb over sand dunes; Gaara could understand why most people outside of Suna hated the desert. There were even some shinobi from Suna that hated being surrounded by sand, the older generation would say that the desert was a harsh mistress and only the strongest could call it home, but at this exact moment Gaara could understand where the complaints came from.

It was while he thought about this that he walked over another sand dune and saw a small group of three. From where he stood it looked as if they were severely under prepared for this kind of hike, all of them were walking rather slowly which wasn't an encouraging sight. It could likely mean many things. They could be tired, dehydrated, demoralized or even have sunstroke. Maybe it was all of the above; no matter what it was seeing them like this was not encouraging the thought of helping them. It was very likely that they would be nothing but dead weight and that they would only slow him down, he almost turned around to act like they weren't there, almost.

Their was a tiny nagging voice at the back of his head telling him to help, that it was his duty as a shinobi to protect anyone who needed it no matter what. Then another voice told him that maybe they knew where they were going and that they were just tired, not the most likely scenario but still possible nonetheless.

"Hey!"

Someone yelling interrupted his internal debate, and when he refocused on reality he saw that one member of the group, a dark skinned girl with a brown hair in some type of blue dress, was running toward him while the other two followed behind her, albeit much slower. When she got close to him she rested her hands on her knees and started to pant before recomposing herself and standing up straight.

"My friends and I got lost and we need some help getting out of the desert, could you help us?"

So they really were lost huh? It was a long shot but he had been hoping that they actually had some kind of idea of where they were. Still, finding other people was definitely a good start.

"It is not wise to enter the desert with no idea on how to leave. Why would you do such a thing?"

"We needed to find something, and we did have a way out but… he was taken."

The last part was said with a hint of sadness, a friend had been taken? Why? How? And what were they looking for? The girl once again cut off his thoughts.

"Please. We really need help."

A quick glance at the group showed him that they didn't exactly look like the most capable group one of them, a tall dark skinned boy, was simply standing stock still and smiling straight up at the sky. He also noticed a white lemur like creature on the boys shoulder; it was digging through the boys' ear before it suddenly stopped and slowly turned its head to look at Gaara square in the eye, licked its lips and went back to picking the boys ear. The other one appeared to be a short blind girl. Not encouraging at all.

"I suppose you do, very well follow me."

The girl smiled widely before she suddenly stuck her hand out.

"I'm Katara, that's my brother Sokka, the lemur is Momo and that's Toph."

Gaara slowly took the offered appendage and let it go without shaking or squeezing it.

"I am Gaara"

Seeing that introductions were over Gaara beckoned for them to follow him and continued walking the same way that he had before until, once again, Katara called out to him.

"Wait! Another friend of ours, he took off that way to try and find Appa, our friend that got taken, we can't leave until he comes back."

Gaara almost sighed at her statement, he didn't want to sit here and wait for someone who may not even be coming back, and it was a waste of time, time that could be used to return home. Before he could open his mouth to respond he heard a whistling sound as a human landed a few feet away from them. Had that boy just flown? It appeared that he was the only one questioning what had just happened as Katara gained a sad look before approaching him.

"I'm sorry Aang, I know it's hard for you right now, but we need to focus on getting out of here."

"What's the difference, we won't survive without Appa. We all know it."

"Come on Aang, we can do this if we work together, besides now we have some help."

For the first time Aang seemed to notice Gaara, he turned to face him and looked somewhat surprised, and a tiny glimmer of what looked like hope flashed across his face.

"Have you seen a bunch of sand benders with a sky bison?"

Gaara quirked his eyebrow at the question, what was exactly was a sky bison? And sand benders? Was that what those people were called

"I'm sorry I don't know what a sky bison is."

He didn't bother mentioning the group he had met before, even if they were sand benders he didn't remember seeing them with anything other than those boats, and telling Aang about them would be time a time consuming venture with no possible rewards, after all that entire group had been knocked out and buried deep the in sand.

Aang's hand clenched his staff tight and he looked very disappointed at the answer, he turned his head to the side to avoid eye contact and remained quiet. Getting the feeling that all conversations were done Gaara once again signaled for the group to follow him. Now he was responsible for not only finding his own way out but he was also in charge of making sure this rag tag group made it out safely, perhaps he had just made things a lot harder for himself.

**XXX**

**So, there you guys go a brand new chapter and it only took me close to a year. Now I know that this is a short chapter, trust me I read it a couple times before deciding that it was for the best. Also, I have now decided that I will be trying to update at least once a week. Basically that means one update per month per story, I feel like because my chapters are so short that once a week is more than reasonable. As always review and P.M me if you guys have any questions, later.**


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